Bodoe promises action on CDAP, cancer drug shortages

Ke­jan Haynes

Pa­tients strug­gling to ac­cess med­ica­tion for chron­ic dis­eases, can­cer and some psy­chi­atric con­di­tions could see im­prove­ments, with Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe promis­ing ac­tion to ad­dress short­ages in the pub­lic health sys­tem.

The short­ages in­clude but are not lim­it­ed to, breast can­cer drugs ex­emes­tane, anas­tro­zole and letro­zole.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on the na­tion­al bud­get in Par­lia­ment late Sat­ur­day night, Bo­doe ac­knowl­edged the prob­lems with the sup­ply of drugs un­der the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) and said steps were be­ing tak­en to make the med­i­cines avail­able as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

He said CDAP cov­ered 52 items and that arrange­ments were be­ing made to ad­dress short­ages, in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing safe al­ter­na­tives where the pre­scribed drugs were un­avail­able.

“I have in my hand here a list. There are 52 items on CDAP,” Bo­doe said.

“My in­for­ma­tion is that the four ar­eas where the drugs are (in short sup­ply), and I've been giv­en the as­sur­ance that all is be­ing done to have these drugs avail­able in the short­est pos­si­ble time.”

The min­is­ter said he had en­gaged a phar­ma­cy ad­vis­er to vis­it CDAP phar­ma­cies and hos­pi­tal phar­ma­cies to in­ves­ti­gate the short­ages first­hand.

The ad­vis­er would work along­side on­go­ing ef­forts in­volv­ing the Min­istry of Health and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIPDEC) to ad­dress prob­lems af­fect­ing the sup­ply of med­i­cines.

Bo­doe al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about ac­cess to can­cer med­ica­tion, ac­knowl­edg­ing the high cost of on­col­o­gy drugs and say­ing the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing on a pol­i­cy to im­prove their avail­abil­i­ty.

"Can­cer drugs can be very ex­pen­sive," He said. "But of course the gov­ern­ment pro­vi­sion and as­sur­ances to pro­vide these drugs, and we are in the process of draft­ing a pol­i­cy that will speak to an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach and how we can treat with these drugs and make sure they are avail­able."

He said a group of on­col­o­gists was de­vel­op­ing an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to can­cer care and up­dat­ing the na­tion­al on­col­o­gy for­mu­la­ry, which guides the se­lec­tion of med­i­cines for pro­cure­ment.

The aim, he said, was to en­sure that the most rel­e­vant and cost-ef­fec­tive med­i­cines were avail­able while main­tain­ing stan­dards of ef­fi­ca­cy, safe­ty and qual­i­ty.

Bo­doe as­sured Par­lia­ment that the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing to ad­dress the short­ages and im­prove the sup­ply of med­ica­tion to pa­tients.

The is­sue was raised by Op­po­si­tion MP for Arou­ca/Lopinot Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who said pa­tients fac­ing short­ages of can­cer med­ica­tion of­ten did not know where to turn.

“There is se­ri­ous short­age of can­cer med­ica­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and many of these pa­tients do not know where to turn,” Gon­za­les said, ques­tion­ing what pro­vi­sions the Gov­ern­ment had made in the bud­get to ad­dress the prob­lem.

Bo­doe said the Gov­ern­ment was al­so ad­dress­ing stor­age and dis­tri­b­u­tion prob­lems, in­clud­ing those as­so­ci­at­ed with the age­ing C40 ware­house. He said plans were un­der way to con­struct a new cen­tralised ware­house for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and non-phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­plies.